Find some 'Digital Superstars' for your church website

In my previous blog on ideas for church websites I mentioned the concept of Digital Superstars. I thought I'd flesh the idea out more in a more detailed blog post.

What are Digital Superstars?

These are people who find computer / internet skills simple and are happy to give a little voluntary time to help your church.

Designers, bloggers, artists, photographers, reporters... you need some of these. Do you have any amongst your church members? What about their spouse who might not even come to church. You don't need to be a professional in that area to be good at logo design, photography or writing a decent blog. In fact your young people might be the most experienced with sklls such as video making, and keeping up to date with social media. No 'young' people? Don't worry - just keep asking around - be persistent and you will find the skills somewhere in your church members. What's nice about building a team up is that the work is shared out and it seems like less of a big task. You'll probably find that you have a distinctive mix of skills in your church which reflect your congregation and the character of your church. You want to encourage this. For example you might have a team who already write a magazine for your church. Would this directly transfer to the web? It might do, and it would give a flavour of what you're about. If you have a local photography club or just a few people who love taking photos then that will really enhance your site, making it reflect the unique look and feel of your church community. Maybe you could showcase some of your events, or even start a project such as 'lent at St YourChurch through photos.'

Where and who are they?

These people are already there in your church. You just need to find them. And they will be there - trust me. Do this prayerfully, and ask people to think about how they are BEST using their God given gifts. You might need to look a bit further than the obvious and usual volunteers. Quite often you don't want the same people stretching themselves thinner. In fact it would be a good idea to enlist people who don't usually volunteer in church. You might find you bring in people from the fringes of your church. Younger people might help. Also this voluntary role is ideal for really busy (profesional?) people because they can fit it in at any time. You might well also find that local people who are not church members will help. Try putting a post on your local community Facebook group ahd you'll be surprised what help might turn up.

Of course you don't need to call them digital superstars - you can use any name you like.

What might they do?

There are a few ideas above, but here is a detailed list of a range of jobs and projects that yoru digital superstars could take on:

Undertake to manage the church twitter account and include a tweet of the week on your churches paper newsletter.

Create a photo gallery to explain who is on your church leadership team.

Make a video for new visitors explaining what your church is about.

Record the teaching sessions and upload these to teh audio tool on your website.

Check the calendar on the website regularly and make sure that this is always up to date with good quality information.

Create facebook events for your main events and encourage their facebook friends to invite each other.

Write a blog regularly on a range of different topics.

Moderate a forum on your church website.

I hope that is useful. What do you think of the idea? I sincerely believe these people are out there in any church - you just need to ask around. It is normally best to have a core team of editors who plan the content for your church website and we can help with ideas for adding new and exiting new sections of content - just drop us a message if you have a bright idea or have seen something you like the look of.

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About the author

Jon Burdon has been a follower of Jesus all his life. He has worshipped in Churches from widely differing church traditions. He has been writing websites and in voluntary leadership roles in the Church for over 20 years. Blogging on website and social media tips as well as website and app reviews. Jon is founder of Churches Alive Online and #ukchurchchat